Devilled Eggs and Pickled Beets

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Cheri's Place

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I think devilled eggs are delicious with ham. They do go well with so many things. I also like to make potato salad and deviled eggs together because you always have some eggs that don't peel well and you can use those for the potato salad saving the ones that have a nice shell for the deviled eggs.

Here's a good tip for you. Fresher eggs won't peel as easily when hard-boiled. So if you have some eggs that you've had a little longer and need to use up they're great for hard-boiling.

You also want to make sure the yolks are cooked really well all the way through so they'll make a smoother filling. So even though 3.5 minutes will give you a hard-boiled egg when you're trying to make a soft-boiled one, I usually cook them about 15 minutes for deviled eggs.

But that's at a very slow boil. You want the water just hot enough to move the eggs around just a bit and a few bubbles, not a hard boil. Boiling the eggs too fast will crack the shells and give you those eggs-turned-wrong-side-out that really don't work well for deviled eggs.

You'll need:

Cut the cooled, hard-boiled eggs in half. Put the yolks in a bowl large enough for your whisk (or in the blender or food processor) and put the white shell on a platter. When all of the eggs are cut sprinkle the egg white shells with salt. This will give the egg white shell a little more flavor.

Use the whisk or a fork to mash the egg yolks as finely as you can. (You can also use a food processor or blender for this if you have one.) Add the sugar and vinegar first and whisk. Then add the mayonnaise one tablespoon at a time and whisk until you have a good creamy mixture that is still solid enough to stuff the egg shells. You don't want the egg yolk mixture runny.

Stuff the egg shells with the egg yolk mixture. I use a fork and then use the fork tines to mash the filling so it makes pretty lines across the top. You can also use a pastry bag and a star tip to fill them if you want to make them really fancy.

Once the egg shells are all filled sprinkle them with a little paprika to make them pretty and serve.

If you like olives you can also put a slice of green pimento-stuffed olive or black olive on top. It's pretty and adds a little different flavor.

I usually do some with each type of olive and some plain ones too if I'm fixing them for guests so if someone doesn't like olives they can still enjoy them and it makes a nice looking variety on the serving plate too.

Another thing that's very good with ham and almost anything else too is pickled beets. They're so easy to do too.

You'll need:

Drain the beet juice into a sauce pan and put the beets into a serving bowl (or container with a lid if you're doing them the day before). The longer pickled beets marinate the better so you can do them days ahead if you're preparing a big meal and want to do what you can ahead.

Add the sugar, vinegar and cinnamon to the beet juice. Bring the beet juice to a simmer, stirring occasionally, to dissolve the sugar and blend the flavors. Pour the juice over the beets and let them chill and marinate. Sliced beets will be flavorful and ready to eat by the time they chill but quartered or whole beets really need to chill overnight.